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Fab Lab teaches children everything from coding to design and 3D printing

ByLee Bell

A reminder of this is the case of 11-month-old Lavesh Navedkar, who received life-saving heart surgery to fix a rare congenital defect, thanks to a detailed 3D printed model of his tiny organ. Navedkar presented with a double outlet right ventricle defect, reports3dprint, where the pulmonary artery and the aorta come from the right ventricle, rather than the latter coming from the left. There were two routes surgeons could take -- a high-risk repair that would be longterm and involve creating a hole through the heart linking the arteries, or a low-risk option that could cause problems further down the line.

To safely achieve the high-risk surgery, the team sought help from Sahas Softech LLP, which delivered a replica of the organ and various cross-sections within 48 hours of being sent a MRI scan. It meant the surgeons would be prepared when they went in, and able to practice the exact technique ahead of time, leading to a shorter period under anaesthetic in surgery -- vital for the child's recovery. As a result the entire procedure, carried out at Fortis Hospital in Mulund. "In the absence of the heart model, it would have been difficult to confidently opt for complete repair of the heart using an intra-cardiac tunnel or baffle," 3Dprint reports Dr Vijay Agarwal, lead surgeon on the operation, as saying.

Sahas Softech is following up by collaborating on other similar surgeries, with the company commenting: "We believe that by making the technology available to the masses, it will benefit a large number of patients like Lavesh, a goal that is not impossible to achieve and would have far reaching beneficial medical and socio-economic outcome."

The procedure is a reminder of how far 3D printing has come in a few short years, and how widespread its use is. Sahas Softech launched in 2012 and now works across product design, education, geospatial and healthcare industries. Companies like these can make the benefits of 3D printing widespread, and not solely for the wealthy research hospitals around the globe.

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While a 3D printed heart is still a way off, there have been plenty of surgeries carried out to date that were not possible even a few years ago -- including the incredible story of 3D printed biosplints saving the lives of young children suffering from tracheobronchomalacia (a degradation and collapse of the airways).

Here in the UK it was only last year that 12 NHS hospitals had the benefit of using Stratasys 3D printers to help plan surgeries, mainly orthopaedic procedures. In this instance though Replica3DM, the team behind the effort could not setup a hub for hospitals as originally intended due to costs. As those continue to plummet, the hope is that one-off collaborations like the one Sahas Softech is offering in India and Replica3DM in the UK, become a thing of the past and 3D printing centres are integrated into every hospital as the norm.